Reflections, commentaries, critiques and ideas from 40 years experience in the fields of Community Development, Community Education and Social Justice. Useful tools and techniques that I have learnt also added occassionally.

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The name of this blog, Rainbow Juice, is intentional.The rainbow signifies unity from diversity. It is holistic. The arch suggests the idea of looking at the over-arching concepts: the big picture. To create a rainbow requires air, fire (the sun) and water (raindrops) and us to see it from the earth.Juice suggests an extract; hence rainbow juice is extracting the elements from the rainbow, translating them and making them accessible to us. Juice also refreshes us and here it symbolises our nutritional quest for understanding, compassion and enlightenment.

Wednesday, 23 May 2018

Authentic Authority

Roman Senate

How authentic are our authorities? How authentic do we want them to be? If
we are going to accept someone’s authority, then surely we would want them to be
authentic in exercising that authority. Ideally, we would want authority to
come imbued with authenticity.

Perhaps the two concepts – authority and authenticity – have similar roots.
Tempting as this thought may be, the etymology of each are quite different, and
may, coincidentally, offer an insight into two differing approaches to our
democracy. I will return to that later in this blog, but first, let us look at
the two concepts and their derivations.

Authority has its roots in the Latin word auctontatem,
meaning invention, advice, opinion, influence, command. By the
time the word entered the English language it had come to mean the power derived
from a good reputation, the power to convince, or the capacity for inspiring
trust. Hmmm… glimpses of authenticity there!

However, by the 1600s the concept of authority moved closer to the last of
the original Latin meanings and came to indicate those in charge, those with
police powers.

Today, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, authority is defined as a)
the power or right to give orders, make decisions, enforce obedience, b) right
to act in a specific way, and c) official permission.

Authenticity, on the other hand comes to us from Greek. The Greek
word authentikosis a compound word made up of autos
(self) and hentes (doer, being). Adopted into English it meant
trustworthy, reliable, real, genuine.

It has a similar meaning today, as well as meaning to represent ones true
nature or beliefs, and being true to oneself.

Are we now able to answer the original question: how authentic are our
authorities? If trustworthiness is a measure then we would have to say “not
very.” The Readers Digest has been surveying the trustworthiness of various
professions for a number of years. Politicians are regularly found at the
bottom of the list. In 2014 politicians were ranked at 49 out of 50 in terms of
trustworthiness (just one place above door-to-door salespeople.)

Do we want our authorities to be more authentic? If so, then how can that be
achieved?
The differing derivations of the two words – authority and authenticity – may
offer an often unseen insight.

When the founders the United States became the first western nation to reject
the rule of the monarchy they searched for an historical precedent upon which to
draw. They looked to the Roman Republic, where Latin was the language of
administration. Perhaps the most obvious method they borrowed from the Roman
Republic was that of electing representatives. And, true to form, just as in
the times of the Roman Republic, getting elected was more often a case of
knowing the right people, and/or having enough money.1 Somewhere
along the line, the word democracy was attached, unfairly and misleadingly, to
this.

We often think of our modern democracy as deriving from the Greeks. Indeed,
the word democracy does come from Greek. But, what the Athenians and other
Greek city states understood as democracy, is not the form that was adopted in
the United States and then transferred to other western nations.

The Athenians rejected elections as the method of choice in selecting their
representatives. They chose selection by lot, today known as sortition.
Aristotle, one of the most famous of Greek philosophers described the selection
of officials by lot as being democratical, and the selection by election as
being oligarchical.2 Hardly an endorsement for elections as a means
for selecting authorities.

The Greeks used a more authentic approach to selecting their
representatives. The sortition method had much going for it according to them.
Primarily, it meant that anyone could have the chance to be a representative.
it meant too, that because the outcome was random the possibility of influencing
the outcome ahead of time, or corrupting a potential candidate, was heavily
reduced. Sortition also meant that a greater diversity of opinion, experience,
and knowledge was introduced.

And, importantly, the system engendered a greater degree of trust. The Greek
democracies were more authentic.

Perhaps we should consider this option – sortition – today, so that our
authorities become more authentic. Notes:1. For a fuller description and analysis of the links between the US founders
and the Roman Republic see the book Beasts and Gods: How democracy changed
its meaning and lost its purpose, by Dr Roslyn Fuller, Zed Books, London,
2015.

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About Me

I have almost 40 years experience working (paid and unpaid, government and non-government) in community development/education and social justice fields. I have continued to keep myself abreast of philosophies and theories in these and related fields. This blogsite will offer ideas, thoughts, reflections on these fields as well as giving some tools and techniques. I don't pretend that these will be original but I do hope that they will be able to translate some of these diverse ideas into coherent forms accessible to workers in the areas.